My job search has lasted, so far, an alarmingly long time - nearly eight months. You can hardly ever prove the problem is age discrimination – less than a third of such legal actions are decided in favor of the plaintiff, and that’s at the firing end of employment. It is all but impossible to prove what is called “failure to hire” based on age - no one ever says outright, “You’re too old for us.”

But you know in your bones when it happens.

Last time I was conducting a job search – from July 2000 until September 2001 – I came to believe that my age was a hindrance. Several times, recruiters and hiring managers who had been enthusiastic on the telephone and eager to meet me, were oddly subdued when I walked into their offices. One told me, when I arrived at 10AM, that the position had been filled. I had little reason to believe him as we had set up our appointment at 4PM the previous afternoon.

Angry, frustrated and scared about my future but with plenty of time on my hands, I decided to test if age discrimination was limiting my search.

To do so, I created an alter ego whose work experience matched my own, but who was younger than I was. I borrowed my mother’s maiden name, Jessie Banta. I gave Jessie my cell phone number, keeping the land line for myself. I signed her up for a Web-based email account in her name and then created her resume in a different format from mine with fictional, but believable employer names.

Jessie got the same job titles as my own, but I reworded the descriptions and accomplishments to avoid giving away the game to any sharp-eyed readers, and I jiggered the employment dates a bit for more variety.

With the inclusion of some of my television experience, Jessie’s resume became a close, substantive match to my own. The only real difference was that her experience began in 1988, making her appear to be about 33 or 34 years old if you did the math. Neither of us listed education information because I don’t have a degree and I wanted an equal test.

And thus, The Jessie Project was born.

Jessie’s first resume and cover letter went by email to a recruiter to whom I had sent mine, without response so far, a week earlier. To my astonishment, not five minutes after I hit the Send button, Jessie’s phone rang – it was the recruiter.

The conversation was a repeat of one I had run into as myself far too often:

Comments

You've barely begun your tale, and already it is sad. How creative of you to have come up with Jessie. You should have been able to land a good position, strictly on the basis of your having conceived and carried out such an investigation. Did you?

I wonder if you could turn this idea ("Jessie") into a book and market it to baby boomers. It might not make age discrimination go away, but it would showcase your talent, make you some money (maybe), and let others suffering from age discrimination know that they are not alone.

You reminded me of an interview I attended a couple of years ago. A brochure I had designed which included samples of my work, and my accompanying resume got me the interview, but when I arrived for the interview the interviewer couldn't get it over fast enough. He flipped through the pages of my portfolio with barely stopping to really look at the work. He emphasized that they didn't have the time for hand-holding (I have no idea why) and asked me what I thought my level of expertise was with Adobe Illustrator. (I thought my work spoke clearly for itself, and must have done earlier when he assumed I was much younger and called for the interview.)

He also asked if I had an eye for detail. I replied that indeed I did and friends and co-workers often asked me to review work for them because they trusted me to find any errors or omissions.

When I got home I wrote a thank you letter for the interview and took the opportunity to emphasize what I thought were my strong points. I thought I would provide an example of my attention to detail by pointing out the several errors that existed on their web site. It was probably not a good move, but I have the gut feeling that the real reason I was immediately not considered was because of my age.